Taking Every Thought Captive

This is part 2 of a three part series by Pastor Chris Strevel on the certainty of the Christian worldview.  In case you missed it, you can find part 1 here.  Pastor Strevel now turns to discussing the foundation for certainty, the Triune God and His revealed Word.  He concludes by stating, “It is only as western culture recovers its faith in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament that the dilemma of uncertainty in philosophy, morality, and science may be resolved.”

Pastor Strevel is the pastor of Covenant Presbyterian Church in Buford, GA and is Interim President of Christ College.

Why Should Anyone Believe Anything at All?  Part 2

The Certainty of the Christian Worldview

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The Biblical Foundations of Certainty

The Source of Knowledge

The foundation of a consistently Christian theory of knowledge and apologetic method is that certainty is to be found in the triune God’s infinite, comprehensive, and creative knowledge of all things. Whereas for man there is mystery, in that many truths are imperfectly known in this life, giving an eschatological element to all knowledge, with God there is no mystery. God is not in Plato’s cave of obscurity, groping, and uncertainty. He knows himself, man, and the universe exhaustively. This truth lays a foundation for the authority and certainty of the knowledge God has revealed of himself in Scripture. God’s perfect knowledge of all things is the foundation of the creature’s search for certainty. To leave man without any excuse for doubt on this matter, the Bible repeatedly emphasizes that God, the Creator of all things, is the source of all wisdom and knowledge. In Deuteronomy 32:4, he is revealed as the “God of truth, without iniquity.” David proclaims that the word of the Lord is right, not only intrinsically good but objectively true, and all his works are done in truth (Psalm 33:4). Accordingly, God is the One who teaches man knowledge; apart from him there is nothing but darkness, uncertainty, and skepticism (Ps. 36:9; 94:10). God’s law, which should be taken foremost in the broadest sense of his revealed will for man’s life and salvation, is truth and endures forever (Ps. 100:5; 117:2). It has transcultural authority and relevance. God has revealed his word to man so that he may certain knowledge of God’s will (Proverbs 22:17-21). The conclusion of the matter is that God alone is the source of wisdom (Romans 16:27). The Christian worldview is not based upon an ultimate skepticism, probability, or possibility. It is based upon the infallible word of the Creator, whose knowledge creates reality and provides a foundation for certainty in the world.

Two Levels of Knowing

Objective and certain knowledge is available for man, however, only as he recognizes his creatureliness, repents of his autonomy, and submits his mind to God’s revelation in Scripture. In other words, in order to possess true knowledge of God, the world, and himself, man must submit to his Creator’s authoritative interpretation of life. To the extent that the creature “thinks God’s thoughts after him,” he possesses the truth. This must be the comprehensive claim of the Christian apologist. Submission to God’s word is the presupposition apart from man cannot have objective and certain knowledge. Accordingly, faith in God is not an intellectual crutch; it is the absolute prerequisite for knowledge and certainty. Postmodernism is simply a sophisticated attempt to justify modern skepticism by stating that since man has not been able to attain true and absolute knowledge, such knowledge is unavailable to man. According to this view, man must accept the groundlessness of his being, formulate his own meaning, and avoid the tendency to hold personal views dogmatically. This is special pleading, begging the question, and utterly unscientific. Contrary to this view, the Bible establishes in a variety of ways that objective knowledge and creaturely certainty are possible for man. David wrote that the acceptance of God’s word gives light and understanding to the simple (Psalm 119:30). Solomon identified the fear of the Lord, a holy reverence and adoration of God that leads to the hatred of sin and a life of service to him, is the foundation of true knowledge (Proverbs 1:7). He adds that God alone gives wisdom and that knowledge and understanding come from him (Proverbs 2:6-9). It is only when we dedicate ourselves to God’s wisdom that we will come to understand life. The prophet Isaiah wrote that God’s ways and thoughts are high above man’s (Isaiah 55:8-11). Man is the creature of God; his knowledge is true and accurate to the extent they reflect God’s thoughts.

Christ and Knowledge

The Bible presents Jesus Christ as the eternal Son of God, the divine Logos, the personal and ultimate revelation of God to man (John 1:1-18). Accordingly, Jesus Christ is not only the source of all wisdom and knowledge, but he is also the restorer of man to knowledge and truth (John 8:31). This he does by his priestly office, in which he died to satisfy the wrath of God against sinners and obeyed God’s law perfectly in order to provide the sole basis of our justification. He also accomplishes this through his prophetic office. He preached the Word of God during his earthly ministry, and commissioned the twelve through whom the canon of the New Testament was written, supervised, and completed. He promised and gave the Holy Spirit to the twelve, who guided them into the truth; he continues to operate in the church and world today, bearing witness to the Word of God, opening the hearts of men to receive the truth, and guiding the church into ever deepening understanding of the faith once for all given to the saints (John 3:3-5; 14:17; 15:27,27; 16:7; 18:37; Ephesians 1:17,18). Christ, therefore, not only saves men from hell but also from ignorance, skepticism, and despair. Submission to the Lordship of Jesus Christ necessarily entails obedience to his word and looking to him for wisdom and knowledge. For he is the truth of God (John 14:6), the One in whom all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are deposited (Colossians 2:3-8). Therefore, the Christian apologist must present Jesus Christ in all his saving significance and epistemological necessity. Men need saving from their intellectual autonomy and must renounce it, or they will never arrive at a true and objective knowledge of God, the universe, and man, much les attain to a saving knowledge of God or the blessedness of everlasting life.

Faith and Knowledge

The previous components of the Christian worldview combine to form one irresistible conclusion: faith precedes knowledge. Before man can know, he must believe. Even in his pre-fall condition, Adam was to pursue knowledge in faith and submission to God’s Word. Sin has intensified the need for faith, for it has exerted comprehensive effects upon man – spiritually, intellectually, and morally. Our conclusion does not imply that faith is devoid of knowledge or that it is unhistorical. Faith is based upon knowledge of God’s character, the saving work of Jesus Christ, and the life-giving and directing word. Faith, moreover, is not a leap into the void of mysticism. Faith is essentially a looking away from man as the source of truth and knowledge, repentance of intellectual and spiritual autonomy, and receiving and resting upon Christ alone for grace and knowledge. When Christian apologists insist that faith precedes knowledge, they are asserting that only the triune God revealed in the Bible can give man true and objective knowledge. This brief formula challenges both the intellectual idolatry of modernism and the prevailing skepticism of postmodernism, based as it is upon the acceptance of the ultimate irrationalism of the universe and the utter unknowability of objective truth. As no unbelieving system can embrace the comprehensive claims of biblical Christianity except at the cost of intellectual repentance, it is exactly here that the work of the apologist must begin, by demonstrating that faith in the Creator’s Word is the absolute precondition of true knowledge.

Scripture and Knowledge

One cannot provide a meaningful answer to this question without stressing that the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament are the sole foundations of certain knowledge for man. The triune God is the Creator, Governor, and Sustainer of the universe. He spoke the world into existence. He created language as a suitable medium to convey transcendent truth to man his creature. Through every stage of man’s development since the Garden, the Word of the Lord has been his guide. It is true that some groups pursued alternative religious paths, but this was in rebellion against God’s covenant word and suppression of God’s clear revelation of himself in nature. The consequences were cultural suicide. As history progressed, he gave his chosen people additional revelation that built upon and expanded earlier truth, in order to create and sustain faith in his original promise to save the world through a coming Deliverer. In the fullness of time, that Deliver, who by this time had been progressively identified in the Old Testament revelation as the Prophet who would declare God’s word infallibly and consummate previous revelation, the Priest who would atone for man’s sin and restore him to fellowship with God, and his King who would rule over him, subduing his heart to teachableness and making him a willing servant of the kingdom of God. He is thus the supreme Word of God, the Logos of Christian Scripture and theology. His earthly ministry was short, but during his lifetime he commissioned his chosen apostles to be the authoritative conveyors of his word. To fulfill this calling, he promised them a special endowment of the Holy Spirit, the third Person of the Trinity, who would guide them into all the truth (John 16:13). In their oral proclamation, personal writings, and supervision of the writings of their close associates, God’s final word became enscripturated, an inspired, all-sufficient, and infallible record of the will of God. The chain of authority is clear: God sent his Son, his Son commissioned the apostles, the apostles left behind the written Scriptures that were inspired by the Holy Spirit. It is to this word that all men and nations must give faith and obedience if they are to understand God, the world, and themselves. Apart from these Scriptures, man is reduced to skepticism, uncertainty, and despair, as the history of men and nations that have rejected this word makes clear. It is only as western culture recovers its faith in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament that the dilemma of uncertainty in philosophy, morality, and science may be resolved.